Off Grid

As she stared at the ocean, Selene wondered if anyone hadnoticed the moment it becamealmostimpossible to go off grid.Had anyonestoppedandfrownedwhen the last security camera wove into the cell phones that pinged off the delivery drones as they took their orders from the web of satellites silently orbiting the Earth?Could they ping her location now, triangulate the chill ofthe waves lapping over her toes?

Thinking back,Selene thought that Rico might havebeen the first to pay attention. But perhaps not. She had been aware from the time she was very young that she did not understand things as well as many other people.DeeAnn, her older sister, had pointed it out often enough.Her very successful husband fully agreed.

Maybe that was whathad attracted her to Rico. While other men whisperedage-oldnonsense to her, Rico talked restlessly aboutthe evils ofthesocial order, the loss of freedomthat technology had brought about. She remembered sitting on a picnic blanket,watching ants while he explained it all. The ants hurriedoninsolitarydetermination, but theygentlytouched antennaeandthendashed about their tasksfor the good of the entire ant civilization.

As Rico talked aboutgovernmentconspiracy, Selene remembered a fragment of a poem read in high school, “Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd. If anything was wrong we should certainly have heard.”

“Do you think the ants feel free?” she asked Rico.

“Don’t be stupider than you have to be,” he snapped.

Ashetold her more aboutwhygovernment needed to be destroyed, she watched the ants.

When they got married, Selene hoped Rico wouldforgethis growing rage at society. DeeAnntold her bluntlythe guy was crazy and dangerous. Selene pushed down her vague fear that her sister was right. But what could she do? And with a baby on the way,surely even an obsessivecomputer geek wouldabandonall that stuff he hunteddownand wroteabouton the internet.

While she was in hospital, someone broke into theirstudioapartment. Rico went berserk, stomping and shoutingthat the government was closing in on him.

Selenesank into a chair andcriedmost aboutthe photo album tossed on the floor –the torn apart memories…photos ofher and DeeAnnsticky withice cream…their first day of school…the cottage on the ocean where the wavessometimesrose so highanyone could beswept out to sea...

She held baby Tia tight against herwhile,still shrieking rage, Rico torethe machineoff its cables.With animal grunts,heheaved it throughthe window. Glass shattered;people shouted from the sidewalk;Selenecriedand pulled Tia closer.The baby howled. While Selene huddled in bed, Rico tore the apartment apart until nothing of their home remained.

Then he left.

Shattered, Selene stayedin a cocoon of blanketsuntil theprimal needs of the babysupersededher own anguish. Ants hadclimbedup the wall and through the broken window, and wereringing a pool of spilled juice as devotedly as religious converts. Selene found some crackers that were mostly untouched and chewed the dry stuff. No foodfor hermeant no milk for the baby.

She looked after all their needs somehow. Rico would notreturn to her– and shewas relieved. These last few weeks, his anger against society hadvacillated between violent rages andstony coldanger. Selene wondered why she had thought she loved him.

But she needed groceries. And a broom.She carried Tia to the corner store and slid her card intotheATM.The machine kept the card, flashed some words about customer service, andgave back nothing. She stared at it as thoughitwasa beast waiting to pounce.

Tia squirmed against her. “It’s okay, sweetheart,”Selenemurmured.

Mr. Patel watched uneasily from the counter.

“My card isn’t working,” she told him. “I don’t know…”

He handed her a paper sack. “Shop,” he said. “I know you,Selene. You smile. You are kind. You tried to save your crazy husband. Now shop in my store and we will settle later.”

Eyes brimming, Selene tried to hug him, missed, and they both laughed. She chose groceries carefully, food that would keep because if she had no money, the electricity would be turned off. She was about to leavewith another round of thanks,when Mr. Patel gestured her to stop.

“Wait,” he said. “Those people are going into your apartment again.”

“Again?”Selene staredas aman and woman inserteda key into her door and walkedin. A minute or two later, they came back out and looked around.

“Those twodid the same while you were away having the baby,” Mr. Patel said. “My wife said they must be relatives, friends. But me, I don’t think they look like friends.”

“They aren’t friends,” Selene said. “I don’t know who they are.” The baby began to cry, and the heads of the non-friends whipped in her direction.

Before she could move, anotherman and a woman stood on either side of her. Mr. Patel shrank backwards.

“Hi, Selene,” the woman said. “We need to talk with you. This way.”

They took her in a car to a cold building where the offices had blank doors. They asked about Rico, about his friends, about his plans.

“Rico doesn’t have friends.” Selene tried to stop the quaver in her voice. “I need to go home. Maybe at work. He works at Big Buy in their computer section.”

“That’s what he told you, did he?” the man said. “Are you that stupid? Your husband is up to his dirty eyeballs interroristactivities. What is your part in this?”

The questions lasted a long time, and then they let her go home. They even drove her – and they replaced her ATM card.

In her shattered home, Selene fed the baby and stared at the card laid out squarely on the sheet in front of her. Fragments of theone-sided conversations with Ricodrifted back. She could be tracked…through her phone…her cards…traffic cameras…computers…banks…

They could always find her.

As the hours passed and she stared at the wall, Selene thought that perhaps she had simply been casually stupid. She was not fit for society because she had not understood…had not cared. DeeAnnhad warned her about Rico…Rico had warned her about the government…the government had done…what?

While Tia slept, Selene cleaned up the apartment. She wondered if she should search it for bugs, and giggled hysterically thinking that she was surrounded by ants and surveillance.

“Surreal,” she murmured. Whosejob wasitto listen to her words?Or was it like Rico said, everything recorded and scanned by a computer.Inpanic she wondered if they could listen to her thoughts too.

“Don’t be stupid, Selene,”she ordered herself.

She went and stood over her sleeping child, swelling in the sudden clarity of love. She would raise her child not to be so stupid. Or maybe it would be better to raise her to be stupid likeDeeAnn– full of intelligence but unaware of how her life was manipulated. That was better than brilliant and tortured like Rico. He hadsaidthey had toescape,go off grid.But how?

She slowly turned, looking at the walls of her apartment. Were they bugged like a spy movie? Was she too damned simplistic to realize that there were a thousand waysthey could find, watch, listen?

Rico came back that night. He came in stealthily and Selene laughed, thinking how naive he was. Now, even she knew they were watching.

“What did you tell them?” he demanded, leaning too close.

She pushed him away. “Nothing. I don’t know anything.”

He chewed his lip. “You must know things. We lived together. I know you were watching the screen over my shoulder while I worked. Did you tell them?” His voice rose and he pushed her against the wall, his handflashinga knife. “I’ll slit your throat, if you tell them anything.” Tia wailed and his eyes slid to the baby. “And your bastard’sthroat,too.”

He left the way he had come. She sat on the bed, rocking herself, and then she rocked Tia. She thought about the ants that looked happy as they hustled about living and dying in the hive mind.Somehow herownmind had been torn from the social nest.Hadshebeen born withan insidioussocialdeformity that separated her from people?DeeAnnhad tried to warn hershe was too trusting. Rico’s mental deformity had torn her all the way away.When someone was driven from the hive, could she be forgiven and taken back?

How much had she never realized? What would her stupidity cost her daughter?

Shehadstarted to thumb DeeAnn’s number into the phone, when they walked in. They took her. There was nopoliteness this time. Tia wailed as the woman picked her up.

Selene screamed, butno one cared.

Questions, and questions. She had no answers no matter how hard she tried. She begged them to bring back her baby. They looked at her with cold, cold eyes and told her thatthey had heard Rico threatenTia, that sheherselfwas suspect in a terrorist cell.

That they would keep the baby safe…away from her.

They dumped her back at the apartment.Bait for Rico.She knew theywould neverlet hersee Tia again.But somehow, she had to save her baby.Off grid.

Selene called DeeAnn. “You were right,” she whispered. “About everything. When they can’t use her against me any more, don’t let her grow up stupid like me. Love you…”

She hung up, while DeeAnnscreamed her name in the phone.

TheATMcard did work.She laughed a little thinking how they would be trying tosecond-guesshow her actions would lead them to more terrorists.Selene chose a comfortable rental and began driving backwardsthroughher memories. Paused at the house where she grew up. Cruised past the school.Bought achocolate ripplecone at anice cream parlor. Watched kids running and shriekingin a playground.

She nearly lost it when she realized she would never watch Tia playing.

At lastshe stood on the beach, smelling the salt tang,listening to theendless waves. The soundcarried echoes ofhersand DeeAnn’schildhoodlaughter from a thousand years before.

All done. It was time.

Droppinghercell phoneandtheremains of the conein the sand, shewaded into the surf. The shock of cold took her breath away, but she waded farther and began swimming. With a bubble of laughterSelenerealizedthat in the depths of the ocean,there was no grid.

On the beach,the phone rang and rang. The ants found the remains of the cone and carried it back to their nest.

About The Author

I love to write! And I love to write for teens. Since I was a kid, bored with school, I’ve been making up stories. Eventually I became a journalist, got married, had kids, adopted dogs and started writing books in earnest. Three followed, plus two more co-authored with Anne Stephenson.

I’ll be publishing a half dozen new books in the next year or two, some fantasy and some realistic which I hope will appeal to teen readers – I’ve had quite a few kids read them and gotten a thumbs up! Check out my website at www.susanbrownwrites.com